


But If You Close Your Eyes

by Sineala



Category: Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Community: trope_bingo, Fix-It, Ghosts, M/M, Non-Canonical Character Death, Time Travel, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 02:10:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1370032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having just been given command of the Attacotti, Alexios finds himself traveling backwards in time to the very moment when he was put in charge at Abusina. He has the power to erase his greatest disgrace, but the consequences of doing so are nothing he ever expected could happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But If You Close Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Trope Bingo, Round 3; the square is "time travel."
> 
> The large and seemingly contradictory mass of tags is my attempt to convey that Alexios has ended up in a timeline where, for various reasons, different characters live and/or die -- I've killed a few minor characters in passing, resurrected a few more, and made a few canonical deaths happen differently. But no major characters who survived the novel die here.
> 
> One or two lines of dialogue have been taken directly from the novel.

Hilarion's arm was around his shoulders as they stood together, looking down from the parapet.

That was the last thing Alexios remembered. The last right thing.

Suddenly the sky was dark, as if heavy with a storm, some tempest that had descended out of nowhere. Alexios took a breath, startled, and the air in him was thick, cold and heavy, like river-water in winter, like a fist to the throat, nothing like a storm at all. And then he saw that the darkness was not a thing of the air, but rather was approaching him like a war-host, quick and vicious and somehow alive.

Hilarion's fingers tightened against his hurt shoulder, and Alexios whimpered in pain but nonetheless reached up with his other hand to lock his fingers with Hilarion's. An impulse: do not let him go, his mind said. He would be lost, carried down the current and into the falls. Something terrible was to happen if they let go of each other, and he had no notion of what.

The dolphin ring that he wore wrong-handed glinted once in the midst of the darkness, and then clouded over, just as a hideous wind came up over the ramparts.

The storm that wasn't howled terribly around them, the worst of storms, and Alexios struggled to stay upright, staggering and leaning into Hilarion, and together the two of them lurched backwards. He thought, he hoped that they might at last have won free, but then the greatest gust of all blew, and it forced them apart.

Hilarion was yelling something over the gale, words he could not make out.

Hilarion's fingers scraped weals down Alexios' hand, scratching, catching, and Hilarion dragged the ring over the knuckle, off his hand, struggling to take hold of him even as Alexios tried the same, in vain.

Alexios stretched his arm out, his hurt and healing arm, but Hilarion was too far, and the dark wind pushed him away and then closed over everything: the fort, the rest of Onnum, Hilarion's pale, terrified face--

There was only the cold and darkness.

* * *

The light was wrong.

He was up on the walls of a fort, and it was not Onnum. The land beyond the fort was wrong, all wooded, and Alexios smelled all around him the stench of gore, the odor of the dead and dying. At his feet lay the body of a soldier -- not one of his Wolves, for he knew them all by sight -- dressed in the iron armor of ordinary soldiers. Not scouts, not anything like.

Where was he?

Alexios leaned back against the breastwork, unsteady; sweat pooled clammily on his skin, and only then did he feel how heavy he was and look down at himself: he was wearing the same armor as the body next to him. Flung a little bit away, as if Alexios himself had absentmindedly dropped it, was a helm, crested transverse with crimson. A centurion's crest. 

He must have fallen and hit his head. And dressed himself in another man's armor? No, that made no sense.

Perhaps the attack from the north had kept coming, he told himself. Perhaps they had pulled back from Onnum, too, and left it to the tribes, and then... well, something had happened, clearly, something that he had forgotten, and here he was defending a fort in a land that he did not recognize.

Except he did know it. Something familiar tickled at the edge of his memory, and resolutely Alexios pushed the thought away. It made no sense.

It was then that he heard heavy, fast footsteps, the sound of a man taking the stairs up to the ramparts at a run, and when he lifted his head he was face to face with an optio he didn't know. But somehow, somehow, he thought he had seen him before.

The optio's face was streaked with blood and he held his arm awkwardly, likely sprained or broken -- Alexios was by now intimately familiar with that stance -- but somehow he managed a respectable salute with the other arm.

"Sir," the man said, "Centurion Crito--"

And the rest of the words went away, in a great icy rush of terror and denial, because Centurion Crito had died at Abusina.

This was Abusina.

No.

He had to be dreaming. Or perhaps, as he had thought once, in that prison-cell awaiting the inquiry, he was still dreaming -- this was all a nightmare. Perhaps the Wolves, and Britain, had all been a dream too, and it was only ever this. Perhaps he was in the cell even now, dreaming anew.

Bile rose in his throat, and he grabbed at the breastwork again, the wood splintering under his fingertips. It didn't feel like a dream.

His hands were scratched raw where Hilarion had clawed at them.

His arm still ached with Cunorix' death-wound.

He wore no ring.

"Sir," the optio said again, more urgently, "Centurion Crito is dead. You are in command, sir."

Alexios stared at the optio, at him and through him, not seeing him, willing him to go away, for all of this not to be real. Lord of Light, had he not suffered enough here? What mad god would bring him back to it? Could it be a death curse of the druid Morvidd?

It could be Cunorix. The second thought, awful, traitorous, came hard on the heels of the first: even now Cunorix would still have cursed him, avenged Connla's death, even when they had--

He didn't let himself finish the thought.

"Centurion," the optio said, and the rank, the rank that had not been his in two years, was more than anything else the final seal on this awful reality. "Are you hurt? Were you injured in the fighting?"

The ruins of Bremenium flashed through his mind; he stood facing Cunorix in the torchlit circle--

"No," Alexios forced out, through numb lips that did not want to obey him, "I am unharmed. Issue the men their morning-rations, get the wounded to shelter, and I will be at the Principia shortly."

The words echoed through his head as he said them. He had said exactly that before. He had said all of it, in those words, given the orders just so. And here he was again, saying the very same thing. Doing the very same thing.

* * *

For the third time in his life, Alexios piled all the papers to be burnt on the floor of the Sacellum, and he found that, though his mind was curiously blank, his hands shook as though he were the most terrified of raw recruits on the battle-line. The clerk who helped him, he thought, would likely put this down to nerves: the truth was unutterable. If he was not dreaming, and not mad, then what was this?

They could hold the fort, of course; the events of the attack were seared into his memory. Before he died, Crito had sent the gallopers out for reinforcements. There was no reason the same thing should not have happened again. He must behave as though this were all he knew of the situation.

He feigned surprise, or hoped he did, when the optio came to tell him of movement in the northwest, and in short order he had joined Centurion Clovius on the breastwork to watch the Marcomanni hold three heads high, throw two forward. Their messengers. But Alexios knew this too: the third of them was a trick. The message had made it through. It was all as it had been before.

Beyond the walls and gates and bath-houses, a little to the north, the Danubius shone silvery in the morning light, and if Alexios had needed further proof that he was not now where he had been before, the river neatly provided it. He remembered this place. Here at the fort they were the Limes, the border with the eastern barbarians, as the walls had been in Britain. As they were now. Two years in the past, nothing had fallen yet. O Jupiter, but it made his head hurt to reason it out.

Clovius regarded him with ice-blue eyes, unmoving, and looking at him, Alexios could think only of the man as he had seen him at the very last: dead at Marcomanni hands, on the trail, not far from here, because of Alexios' own orders. It would happen after nightfall. It had happened two years ago.

Likely Clovius thought him ill at ease from the fighting, from all the death, as he had been in truth when this had happened; after all, Alexios had been no more than an inexperienced cub then. But he had been with the Wolves since then, and this was hardly anything yet; it was only the memory of Clovius' death that made him falter -- that, and the horrific knowledge of everything he would have to live through again.

"Have them put with the rest of the dead," Alexios said, hoarsely, knowing that he had said that before as well. "Come to me in the commander's quarters when you have finished here."

Then he ran, leaping the stairs two at a time, not to be sick as he had before, but because the running gave a clarity to his thoughts, and if he could just think of a way--

He stopped, dumbstruck, at the door to the commander's empty quarters.

He was the one giving the orders. He did not have to give the same ones.

Their relief was coming. He knew that. It had happened. It would happen again. They would be there in the night, just as they had been before. He could order the men to stay. He could order them to hold the fort. It was standard procedure. Clovius would even agree with him.

He wanted to laugh, half with joy and half with terror at his own audacity. His disgrace, erased. It would never have existed. But more importantly, the men of Abusina would live. They would never have died. He could do that for them.

He must do it.

What kind of man would he be, otherwise?

Clovius appeared at the door, glowering. He saluted him with the air of a man who resented every minute of being forced to take orders from an ignorant child. Today, Alexios knew, would be different.

"Sir," said Clovius, rather woodenly.

Alexios half-smiled. "I had a thought," he began, and he knew he had not said that before. A chill ran down his spine. He was changing the past here, now, starting with this. "It is in my mind that the Marcomanni were very careful, you might say, that we did not take the third head they showed us. We did not actually see the third."

Clovius' eyes widened, and behind his filthy bloodsoaked beard his face firmed and straightened out, in what looked like genuine respect. "You think one of our gallopers made it--"

"I hope," Alexios corrected him. There was nothing gained in sounding too certain. "And even if they did not, the supply train is due in...?" Oh, he'd forgotten the details.

"Four days, sir."

"And if they haven't been alerted, then the Regina patrols will surely have heard of the attack; news like this travels fast, wouldn't you say?"

Clovius nodded. "In my opinion, sir, their scouts will have alerted them."

"And with all the different sources for help, surely we can hold the fort until one of them arrives?" He could barely say it. He had gone to the Wolves because he could not, before, but even so Alexios almost could not force the words past a sudden constriction in his throat, as if something in him were still fighting this.

He had to do this. He had to. This was better. This was the way. It was hardly even a choice. Men would live. Clovius would live.

"Certainly." Another brisk nod. "There's a reason those are the standing orders, sir."

"Very well." Alexios drew a deep breath. "We stay, and we wait for reinforcements, whenever they are. If the Marcomanni want Abusina they'll have to pry us out of it."

They were coming. Help was coming. It had to be the same.

"Sir!" Clovius saluted again and ran out, as the trumpeters heralded the onslaught of another attack.

At last, finally, Alexios went to be sick in the latrine, doubled over, shaking, trying to make himself consider the enormity of what he'd done. What he'd changed.

_Did I do the right thing? Immortal gods, is it right?_

* * *

Just after nightfall it was over.

Tribune Tetricus had returned, leading a patrol from Regina, relieving Alexios of his temporary command. The fighting, he thought, had perhaps been less brutal than the first time; at least, the Marcomanni had not wounded the tribune as they had before.

He had done it.

Abusina had not fallen.

In his tiny lime-washed room he stripped off his tunic and stood, motionless in the moonlight from the little high window. The great knotted healing wound still lay on his arm, he saw, and even as he hated what it meant he welcomed it: his life, his old life, had been real. It had happened.

_Send me home now_ , he thought. _I did it. Send me back._

There was nothing.

* * *

In the morning Alexios awoke early, before the crow of the morning trumpets.

He was still at Abusina.

He shut his eyes and swore bitterly.

* * *

He saluted Tetricus in the Sacellum, arriving as he had been ordered; he stood, hands behind his back, watching the tribune sort the pile of papers Alexios had gathered up yesterday back into their usual arrangement. Finally, the tribune harrumphed and looked up.

"Yes?"

"Sir," Alexios offered, "you had sent for me?"

Tetricus' hawk-like face brightened, even as Alexios' stomach clenched in anticipation of the dressing-down he had once received. "Ah, yes, Centurion Aquila! Sit down, sit down! I was told that you and your clever thinking were responsible for the defense of the fort!"

The compliment stunned him, like another blow, and he nearly fell into the chair; he had not thought to be _rewarded_.

"I was only following standard orders--"

"Nonsense!" Tetricus was still smiling. "Why, Clovius tells me that you yourself guessed that the Marcomanni were attempting to trick you into believing the message had not reached Regina! And that your command of the fort was admirable!"

Alexios shifted his weight awkwardly. "It is good of the centurion to speak well of me, sir."

"So it is." The tribune smiled yet again. "And so, I know it sounds callous to address it in this manner, but with Crito's death the fort is in need of a senior centurion. Congratulations, Aquila."

The words hardly made sense at first. Alexios stared.

"Me?"

The tribune nodded.

Oh. Oh, no. He had thought--

He had thought he would go to the Frontier Wolves. That was what _happened_. It had not occurred to him that it could be otherwise, no matter what he did.

But that had been meant to be a punishment, and now there was no reason Alexios should merit it. And he could not turn Tetricus down, he could not ask to be sent to Britain to command Caracalla's... what had Hilarion called them, once? Scum and scrapings of the empire, that was it. No, now he was too good for them. Now, now, because he had done the right thing, he would never know them, his Wolves, he would never meet the Votadini--

Abruptly he became aware that he was blinking back tears.

"Centurion?" Tetricus' voice broke into his reverie. "Are you well?"

To his horror, Alexios sniffed wetly when he tried to breathe. "Fine, sir. I am only... surprised. And honored. Thank you, sir."

That night, alone in his room, at last he could not keep himself from crying. He cried until he couldn't breathe, folded in on himself, all while the half-healed wound from Bremenium that had not happened yet, that would never happen for him, twisted in agony.

He had never cried the first time.

* * *

It would not be so bad for the Frontier Wolves, he tried to tell himself. He knew that Hilarion, at least, had not liked him when he had arrived, so he would spare his friend -- friend? Hilarion would never see him again! -- that much, And Gavros would not get that convenient promotion to praepositus. No, Gavros would stay, commanding the Third Ordo, and they would like him for it, as they had always liked him. 

And the Votadini had liked Gavros. Ferradach Dhu had liked him. Cunorix had. Even Connla. And if Connla liked Gavros -- perhaps, well, now he would think twice before stealing Montanus' horse.

He would never see Cunorix again.

He would also never kill Cunorix again.

Perhaps it would all be averted. Perhaps it would be better for everyone, with Gavros instead of him.

Knowing that made him feel no better.

* * *

When he had first come to Castellum, he could think only of Abusina -- but now that he was at Abusina, Castellum consumed his thoughts. He would wake and think to himself, _ah, here is the day I first arrived at the Wolves. Here, the day I met Cunorix_. Everything was measured by something that was not happening.

His fellow soldiers, Alexios discovered, were kind men, and Clovius' grudging respect had turned into something that was almost a friendship. They drank together. They diced together. Clovius regaled him with stories, built up from the years of his postings across the empire. Alexios would have told him his in return but that none of them were true any longer.

Yet his soul ached. The strange pain only worsened as the days shortened, and the nights grew long and cold coming into winter. The trees were weighted down with rain and snow and soon enough, it was Midwinter Night--

And somewhere, at the edge of the empire, the Wolves were beginning to dance--

And in the officer's mess of a worn-down fort, he was not dicing with Hilarion as Lucius read his Georgics--

He was at Abusina. He was standing outside the entrance to the little Mithraeum, with Clovius opposite him, and gradually he became aware that Clovius was eyeing him oddly.

"Is all well, Raven?" asked Clovius, calling him by his rank in the Mysteries. "You seemed... faraway."

_You have no idea._

Alexios lifted his head and made himself smile. "I am well, Soldier," he murmured. "Let us begin."

It was a lie. It was all lies. He'd been so honest, before. Hilarion would have been proud of him.

He wasn't going to think about Hilarion. He certainly wasn't going to think about Cunorix.

In the cave, he held the bull's head back for the knife.

_Mithras, Lord of Light_ , he thought, as he watched the blood flow, _help me. This wasn't supposed to be my life._

The next morning he was still at Abusina.

* * *

One fine spring day, Alexios did not hunt with Cunorix.

He did not get his wolfskin.

They did not hunt again, later in the month.

And then he didn't-- they didn't--

Alexios went to Abusina's garrison-town that night, drank himself into a stupor, and missed morning-muster the next day, instead awakening the next morning in the bed of one of the local women.

It didn't help.

* * *

Time passed, and Alexios grew -- or perhaps shrank -- into his post as senior centurion, demotion that it was. As ever, he strived to soldier well for Rome, and quickly gained the reputation of being strict but just. And if his century was not his Wolves -- well, at least they were his, and who but he was to know that he had loved one better than the other?

He and Clovius had paired their men and were running swordplay drills with the battered wood and wicker practice-gear; two hundred men stood in the midst of the gusting early-winter wind and swung at each other. Yesterday had been the first day of horseback drills for the new men -- they were a part-mounted cohort, after all -- and half of them moved slowly, still sore from it. Eyes bright, Clovius laughed and yelled encouragements.

"Eh! They're good, aren't they, lad?"

Alexios realized when his face stung with the strain that he had been smiling. It felt as if he had not smiled in a while. Something about that seemed disloyal. "Which, mine or yours?"

"I meant all of them." Clovius threw his head back and laughed. "But if you'd like, we can wager on it!"

"And how will we tell who wins? There are so many men fighting!"

He reached forth to catch the practice sword as it sailed through the air before his mind had quite registered that Clovius had thrown it at him.

"No, I've a better idea," the other centurion said, correcting himself and looking pleased. "Single combat! I hear you're a good fighter. We'll show the fellows how it ought to be done, hey?"

Alexios' heart went cold within his chest, and for an instant Clovius' face became Cunorix', grim, war-painted. Alexios did not resist, and one blow from Clovius' wooden sword took him to the ground. He lay in the dirt, eyes shut, and for long moments he did not try to rise.

Clovius didn't ask him to fight again.

* * *

That night was fifteen days before the Kalends of January, and Alexios dreamed that he balanced the point of his knife against Connla's breast. He knew it was a dream, the strange kind that seemed more real than life, but he could not bring himself to wakefulness, and he watched in silent terror as Connla's face changed, just as Clovius' had, shifting, the planes of the face moving, the hair darkening to russet brown.

He caught his breath. He knew who it was. Of course.

"Do you think things are different now?" Cunorix rasped, his voice grating like stone dragged over stone. "Do you really think you changed anything, my poor little Roman?"

Somehow Cunorix had come unbound, and one hand wrapped about Alexios' hand on the dagger.

"Cunorix, no--"

He woke, drenched in sweat, as Cunorix drove the knifepoint into his own heart, with both their hands.

He wondered if Connla had died tonight.

Perhaps Gavros had killed him.

* * *

By the time Alexios thought about running, it was too late. If Connla were to die, again, he was already dead. Even if Alexios stole a horse, stole a messenger's pass for right-of-way on the roads, he would still have to cross the waters to Britain, and the Votadini would even now be attacking Castellum. If it was happening, it was too late to warn anyone.

And even if he had reached Castellum, what would he have done? The Wolves did not know him. No one in the Ordo would have believed him. His uncle certainly would not have; he would have thought him mad.

As the nights grew ever longer, nearing Midwinter -- the second Midwinter, when all had gone wrong -- all he could think of was his Wolves, running south, abandoning Castellum. They could be dying again, and he was not there. More of them might die. There was no way to know, and the not-knowing hurt more than any wound could.

He walked through the day of Midwinter in a daze, like a dying man. He hardly talked to anyone. He hardly saw them. While making his rounds, he nearly stepped right off Abusina's ramparts, thinking only of driving snow and two hundred men huddled in the ruins of Bremenium.

By now Lucius was surely dead.

That night he was in the Mithraeum once again, for there was no believable way he could explain why he needed to be excused from the ceremony.

He was still just a Raven, but this year it fell to him to slit the bull's throat, and Clovius only looked a little askance, underground in the flickering torchlight, as he passed him the dagger.

"If you want," Clovius began, no doubt remembering the incident with the practice swords, "I can--"

But Alexios shook his head and took the blade.

The sacrifice went well enough; the bull had nodded its head first, even without the trick being done, a good sign, a very good sign. Perhaps Mithras knew, Alexios told himself, perhaps Mithras knew and was saying that this had been done rightly. Indeed, Alexios did not slip; nothing strange happened.

Not until the end, at least.

Some of the new recruits were being inducted and some other soldiers promoted. Alexios was standing at the side of the cavern in the dimness, leaning against the wall, full of the rich meat from the feast. The ritual questions and their answers, again and again, turned into a wash of sound like waves crashing over him. And then it seemed that the golden light of the torches dulled, was extinguished, and out of the darkness Cunorix stepped forth.

He was dead.

He looked as all the underworld's shades were said to look: paler than a living man, taller, insubstantial. He was spattered with blood, and there was a great red hole in his breast, but nothing flowed from it. He was silent.

Cunorix smiled, stepped forward, took Alexios' face between his hands, and kissed him.

It was like kissing ice, kissing a sword-edge; there was nothing there alive anymore, no warmth, no breath, nothing but a shadow of pain and bloodlust, and Alexios knew this was farewell.

"I am sorry," Alexios whispered, against his lover's lips, and he felt his own tears start to run down his cheek.

Cunorix said nothing, and Alexios shut his eyes.

All at once the hands on either side of his head were warm, sticky with blood, and the mouth on his breathed out heat, raggedly, hissing in pain, and Alexios opened his eyes and drew his head back to find--

Hilarion?

Why in the world should he have a vision of kissing Hilarion?

The man who had once been his senior centenarius grinned, or tried to. If Cunorix had been dead, Hilarion was very nearly so: his hands, his head, his jerkin were all smeared with gore, and he staggered where he stood, one hand now clutching a wound at his side. His face was laid open, blood dripping down into one of his eyes. His mouth didn't work right when he smiled; only half of it moved. It was horrific.

"Alexios!" cried Hilarion, hoarse and pain-wracked, and there was nothing of laughter in his voice anymore. "Help me--"

And then he was gone, and Alexios woke with a start as Clovius nudged him in the ribs with a particularly pointed elbow.

"Awaken, Raven," said Clovius, under his breath. "Mithras doesn't want you snoring."

Mithras didn't care. His sacrifices meant nothing to the god, who had not aided him, who had not stopped this. Alexios stared glumly into the darkness. He had lost Cunorix again. He was about to lose Hilarion, if he had not already. Lucius was likely dead once more. Truly he had displeased the gods somehow, even worse than before. What was left to him?

* * *

The word did not come, not for a long while; in winter Rumor did not fly at her usual speed. The first Alexios heard of it was one cloudy day late in January, just after the pay-chest and grain-sacks had come from Regina, when one of the duty optios broke off from his fellows and came to greet Alexios by the store-sheds.

"Centurion," the man said, frowning, "I was wondering if you'd heard anything of Britain."

Alexios' heart rose into his throat. "What is there to know? And why might I know it?"

"You had said your uncle was the Dux Britanniarum. We thought, sir, if there was reliable word to be had that you might have had it from him, for the rest of the news out of Britain is too strange to be trusted."

Alexios shook his head. "I have heard nothing from him." Not that he had tried overmuch -- they had sent the occasional letters, but nothing more. His uncle was a busy man. "What have they said?"

"Well, I am sure it is not all true," said the optio, with a jovial smile that had to be forced. "They are saying that barbarians crossed from Hibernia, and together with the tribes in northern Britain they all swept south, and many of the forts beyond the northern Wall are lost. They are saying some of our own men betrayed us, but surely that is a lie!"

The Arcani.

He had forgotten the Arcani.

Even had he nothing to do with Cunorix, or Connla -- and he had not, this time -- the Arcani had still opened the gates at Segontium and Bremenium. The Attacotti and Picti and Damnonii would have fought all the same, even if the Votadini would have had no reason to attack Castellum.

It had happened. It had all happened again.

"Thank you for telling me," Alexios choked out, finally, feeling all the blood drain from his face. "I will-- I will inquire, and let you know."

Of course, when the messenger came the next week, he said exactly that. Listening to the report, his face schooled into impassivity, he hoped and feared for word of the Frontier Scouts, Third Ordo, but there was no mention.

That night he dreamed of the Wolves, again dead, horses and men both, bodies too ruined to identify, spread out in a great bloodied swath across the new-fallen snow. It was only a nightmare, not a true-dream. But this did not mean it was false.

* * *

"Wine, Aquila?" Tribune Tetricus asked him, gesturing to the empty seat across from him in the Sacellum.

Alexios shook his head, taking the offered seat, and all the while running through his recent behavior in his head; he could think of nothing that would cause the tribune to summon him. He had not, he thought, done badly recently: they had had the new recruits not two months ago, and it had been a handful at first with training them to sword-work, because the younger ones always swaggered like gladiators. But he thought he had eventually managed to coax some sense into them. No, it could not be that. Perhaps one of the men had made some complaint. Perhaps Clovius had finally grown tired of Alexios' fits of inexplicable strangeness.

"Suit yourself," Tetricus said and promptly poured himself a cup and drank it down, neat, like a barbarian. "Mithras, but that's good stuff! Are you certain you won't have some?"

"No, thank you, sir."

It was a few more moments, a few more sips of wine, before Tetricus settled himself enough to begin talking, and Alexios could hardly stand the weight of the anticipation.

"You're probably wondering, Aquila," began the tribune, with a faint smile, "why I asked for you."

"It had crossed my mind, sir."

But Tetricus did not answer the question, instead asking another, equally unexpected: "You are from Britain, yes?"

Alexios blinked. There was no reason the tribune should care about that, but, well, he had asked. And it was certain that Alexios did not look as British as he might, owing to his mother's blood, so he could see that if Tetricus had heard it from another, he could very well be skeptical. "I am, sir. My family has lived there for generations. We've a little farm on the South Downs. My father's family, at least -- my mother came from Ephesus."

The tribune made a little "hm!" noise at that, and Alexios knew he had at least explained the matter of his face. The tribune folded his hands together, pointing his fingers, and then looked up, with an air of thoughtful repose. "And do you actually speak British?"

Now that was a strange question. For a few breaths he could not think of what to say, because he could think of absolutely no reason that anyone would care, here in Rhaetia, whether he spoke the language of the empire's farthest province. Oh, they were a cohort of Britons here, or so the name went, but the cohort itself had not been British-born in Alexios' lifetime, or even Tetricus'. There was no need for the language.

"I do, sir," he said, finally, because it was the truth. "British, and of course Greek as well, if it is needful."

Tetricus was smiling; it was still a bizarre look to see on his face. "Excellent, excellent! And Clovius has been telling me that you have done well training the new recruits. Tell me, was that a task you enjoyed?"

What did it matter if he _enjoyed_ it? Alexios could only stare. This was growing stranger and stranger. Still, he supposed he had; it was better than many of his other duties here at Abusina.

"I have indeed enjoyed it, sir."

"So!" This answer seemed to please Tetricus even more, for he leaned back and smiled even more widely. "That is all very well. I have -- well, I suppose I cannot say it is a promotion, since by rank it may even be a little lesser, the way they reckon it -- but I have for you, Aquila, an... opportunity. Yes, an opportunity. I am not saying you should accept it, of course, but I -- or rather, the other commander -- would like to at least make you the offer."

"An opportunity, tribune?" What was this, a transfer? To where? They were pulling out of Britain, in the north; they would hardly send more men there.

The tribune nodded. "You have heard of the recent unfortunate events in Britain."

Alexios took a steadying breath and was pleased that he could do so without picturing the Third Ordo's dead. "I have."

"It seems that our emperor is determined to make something good come of the disaster. There were men captured, warriors of some Hibernian tribe--" here he looked down at a tablet-- "the Attacotti, they call themselves. He wants -- only the gods know why -- to train them up, in Belgica, to turn them into a scouting Ordo."

A sudden great joy rose in Alexios like rays of golden sunlight, and he was too overcome with happiness even to speak. At last! At last!

Luckily, the tribune took no notice. "Naturally, they're looking to fill the officer ranks with men who have experience commanding scouts or Britons, or who might be a good fit in some other way. The commander and a few of his men are coming from the remains of some misbegotten outfit of horse-archers in Britain--"

_The Wolves, the Wolves!_ chanted his mind, frenzied.

"--but there are gaps in the ranks. Their commander has said that he is looking for a junior centenarius, which is why I have said it would not be a promotion. But it came to me that you were British, and perhaps you would fit them. It would be different, at any rate." He shrugged. "I certainly cannot blame you for saying no, for they are all wild men there, and the officers no less--"

"Yes," Alexios said, cutting in before the tribune could decline it for him. _Yes, please, I will have Lucius' place, I will see whichever of my men are still alive, no matter that they will not know me. I will have my life again!_ "I will accept, sir. I would like that very much."

Now Tetricus was the one staring at him, wide-eyed. His mouth worked. "I-- I had not thought you would-- are you sure?"

"Very sure, sir." Alexios could feel himself smiling wide enough to hurt his face, a true smile, and he could hardly stop it. He did not want to.

"Well." He looked at Alexios, then down at the tablet before him, and then gave a heavy sigh. "That answers that, I suppose. Now will you have some wine? To congratulate you on your... demotion."

"Gladly," said Alexios, and they drank. The tribune still looked bewildered.

* * *

Alexios' mount plodded listlessly under him as they approached the gates of the little wood-and-earth auxiliary fort just this side of Turnacum. It had been barely a month since he'd received news of the new posting, and he was almost there. Almost. The horse would not move any faster, no matter how much Alexios tried to urge him on, no matter how excited he himself was to get there, to see whoever was left alive. Gavros, of course, would be there. He would be pleased to see Gavros.

The optio riding next to him -- his optio now, he supposed -- lifted a hand to the sentries and yelled out the day's watchword, and slowly, slowly, the Praetorian Gate began to open before them. Half-aware of what he was doing, Alexios hauled back on the reins in anticipation and his horse snorted and tossed his head.

The optio looked over and grinned. "We'll get there when we get there, sir," he said, his Latin so thickly British-accented that it reminded Alexios of home with almost a visceral pain. "Not as if the place is much to look at, anyway."

"I'm sure the commander would like to see me sooner rather than later," Alexios returned, offering his own smile. He remembered Gavros as a punctual man.

And then they were inside, and there was a great flurry of activity as men assembled around them, taking his reins, beginning to pull down the baggage from the pack-animals behind them. Alexios rose in the saddle, dismounted, and then turned to come face to face with--

"Lucius!"

The cry was out of his mouth before he could think about whether it was a thing he should have said. _You're alive, O immortal gods, you lived!_ There was a brilliant bloom of fondness within him -- Lucius, Lucius had lived! -- and until this moment, Alexios had not realized just how much he had missed the man, nor how alone he had felt at Abusina without him. Here at last was one thing that this awful new world had done right.

He would have embraced him, but the old Lucius would hardly have stood for that, and the new one, even less so.

The dark, solid man regarded him with a curious, serious stare. "Do I know you?"

For of course Lucius was looking at him with complete incomprehension. They had never met. Not in this life.

"No," Alexios said, frantically reaching for an explanation. "It is only that I had heard of you -- that I would be serving with you. They mentioned your name. And it has been a long journey from Rhaetia, and I suppose I was more excited to be at the end of it than I thought."

No one would believe that, he thought, cursing himself, but Lucius brightened.

"Ah, you would be the new junior centenarius, would you?"

He nodded. "Alexios Aquila," he said, and extended his arm for a hand-clasp.

Lucius took it -- not dead, not dead, O gods, not dead -- in brisk greeting, and all the while continued giving orders. "Pleased to meet you, Aquila. Midir, go put Aquila's things in his quarters for him. I expect you'll want to see the commander now?"

"I had thought so, yes." He could handle seeing Gavros, now that he'd had a little more time to prepare. Lucius had surprised him, that was all. He had thought -- well, he had hoped -- that the other centenarius might be Hilarion. Despite what he had seen at midwinter, he had hoped Hilarion had somehow survived. He hadn't known Lucius could live, in any world.

What had happened to the Wolves, in this life? If Lucius was senior centenarius, and he the junior, in Lucius' place, Hilarion must be dead. Just as he had dreamed. Something hideous and grief-struck twisted within him. Had he traded Hilarion's life for Lucius'? Why would the gods play this awful game with him? Why would anyone? Ah, but Cunorix' shade might, in vengeance--

"The commander's not as bad as all that," said Lucius, thankfully completely misinterpreting the reason behind Alexios' mood. "He only takes some getting used to. If you like, I can walk you to the Sacellum...?"

It was an offer made out of courtesy and kindness -- for even in this world, Lucius was as kind as ever -- because anyone could find his way around a fort, even one he had never been in.

Alexios smiled and nodded. "That would be lovely, thank you," he said, and he let Lucius lead him onward.

* * *

"So," Alexios asked, as they rounded the last corner to the Sacellum, "how is Gavros?"

Lucius' brow furrowed. "Gavros? In fine health and enjoying his new command, the last we heard from him. Ah, but now that is taking me back!"

"Gavros... isn't your commander?" An awful terror seized him, clenching hard. He had done it wrong, somehow. Something else had failed, something had happened that he had not accounted for. "I was told that the commander and centenarius here were both from the same unit, his Ordo."

Now Lucius was squinting at him, as if half of what he had said was right and the other half so incredibly wrong that he could not figure out how Alexios had come to believe it. "True enough, we are -- we were -- the Third Ordo, Frontier Scouts," he said, and something fluttered in Alexios' chest at the sound of someone else finally saying the name, fluttered like the dragon-standard unfurling. "But if you signed on hoping to serve under Julius Gavros, whoever told you he was here was misinformed. I'm sorry. I haven't been Gavros' man for... oh, it must be going on two years now."

"Then who _is_ in command?"

He couldn't think, he really couldn't. All his planning for this moment had been swept away into a great river of confusion. What would he say? What would he do? How could he deal with another stranger, after he'd thrown away his new career just to get here?

But Lucius didn't answer him, because they were at the doorway to the Sacellum, and they stepped in together.

The man at the desk didn't look up. He didn't motion them to come closer. He didn't need to. Alexios would have known him blind.

_Hilarion_.

The great knot of anger and sorrow within him, wrapped about his heart since Midwinter, began to loosen. Hilarion was alive. Name of Light! They were both alive. They were all alive. It couldn't be true. But it was, it was! Even if Hilarion didn't know him, it didn't matter. He lived. That was enough.

Hilarion sat in profile, half-turned away, and even without seeing most of his face Alexios would have known him just by the way he sat. One long leg splayed lazily across the entire length of the desk; his other leg was gathered up, one booted foot resting on the edge of the desk. He had a tablet balanced on one thigh that he was squinting at. He was still pale and freckled, his sandy hair cropped short, but Alexios thought he looked older, more wearied, perhaps a little thinner, some of the sparkle gone from his eye.

Lucius coughed. "Ducenarius Hilarion," he said, in an undertone. Naming him, no doubt, for Alexios' benefit.

_Well_ , Alexios thought, somewhere between amused and terrified, _Hilarion's my commander now, eh? This will be interesting. I wonder if I'll survive that--_

And then Hilarion raised his head to look at them, and all thought was driven out of Alexios' mind.

His face. O gods, his face!

It was a nightmare made flesh. The left side of his face was mostly unmarred; this was the side Alexios had seen first. But the rest -- Alexios thought he might be sick just from thinking about it. There was a great jagged slash, a half-healed sword-scar, starting high on the left side, crossing through his eyebrow, and descending diagonally across his face. It was a wonder he had kept both his eyes. Smaller, lighter cuts ran in parallel at the base of it and there was a starburst scar of a burn at his temple. The cut went deeper and wider as it went down across his right cheek, against the side of his lips down to his jaw where it nearly cleft his chin; it must have been the kind of strike that laid flesh open to the bone -- and that was if you were lucky. The skin was chalk-white, twisted and ridged, and when Hilarion smiled at the two of them in greeting the halves of the grin didn't quite match; the scar pulled the right side of his mouth down.

It was as he had seen in his vision. It was exactly the wound he had seen, seen and thought to be Hilarion's death. But Hilarion had lived through it.

He was only aware that his palm had gone to his own face in agonized sympathy when he realized that Hilarion was staring back at him.

"What is it?" Hilarion drawled. "Don't tell me you've never seen a man who's lost a swordfight before."

Just behind Alexios, Lucius coughed again, more discreetly. "Sir, you did win."

The glance Hilarion gave him, was, Alexios was sure, meant to be humorous, but there was real pain in Hilarion's eyes.

"No one won," he said, flatly.

_I am the only one who can play this particular game_ , Alexios remembered telling Hilarion, as he'd handed him the Ordo's standard, as he'd gone to fight Cunorix. But in this world, he hadn't been here to play it, and Hilarion had taken his place. And this was what had happened.

The moment hung between them, still and quiet. There was nothing Alexios could say, and at any rate he was not supposed to have known about it.

And then Hilarion leaned back in his chair with that terrifying smile on his lips again. "And who might you be?"

Hilarion didn't know him. Of course he didn't know him. He was wounded and broken and he could never know that in another world this had not happened to him.

"Your new centenarius, sir." Alexios finally found his voice, and oh, how strange it was going to be saying _sir_ to Hilarion. "Alexios Flavius Aquila. Formerly first-rank centurion of the Third Cohort of Britons, at Abusina in Rhaetia."

Hilarion raised his eyebrows -- eyebrow and a half -- and looked impressed. "Primus pilus at your age? Maybe I should give you Lucius' post."

Lucius made a strangled noise of disagreement.

"Only jesting," said Hilarion.

"I have been told I was good at training the recruits of my cohort," Alexios added, feeling the need to defend his career choices; this was, after all, a step down. "And... I do speak British." _And I missed you all so terribly that I thought I might die of it._

"That could be useful," Lucius said, in a thoughtful tone.

Hilarion stretched lazily. "Well, Aquila, I can't imagine why you wanted to come here, but I'm certain we'll be glad to have you."

* * *

That night Alexios lay in his bed in his lime-washed little cell, like every room he'd ever had all over the empire, and he wondered what he was going to do. He had thought it would be all better, coming here, seeing the Wolves, but now that he had met Lucius and Hilarion he was beginning to think that it had been a worse idea than he had planned. It was sweet to know that they lived, but they didn't know him. And they were never going to know him, not like he knew them. He had seen them at their worst, and they had seen him, just the same. He had led them in battle. He had held Lucius as he died. Hilarion had cradled him in his arms and fed him broth. 

And somehow, now, he must behave as if none of that had ever happened, all the while seeing both of them every day. Surely they would never believe the truth.

Hilarion would think he was joking, if he tried. 

The thought of Hilarion led to the intrusion of memory: how he had seen him -- not today, but in the Mithraeum, when he had seen Cunorix dead. It had been Hilarion kissing him, then, too. Why would he have dreamed that Hilarion would kiss him?

Obstinately, a flush of heat coursed through him, and Alexios threw his arm over his eyes in exasperation, as if not seeing would stop his imaginings; he hated being reminded of the baser needs of his body. Perhaps he had desired Hilarion, before. Well, and? There was no need to be ashamed of that. Hilarion was scarred now, true, but so was he; it was no matter. That was not the problem. The problem was that Hilarion did not know him.

If it had been Hilarion, really him, and he'd asked -- well, Alexios had loved him as a friend for a long while. Not that he thought Hilarion had wanted him in return; oh, sometimes there had been certain looks that he thought might mean more, but it was all a joke with Hilarion. But Alexios would have done it now, no matter what he looked like, because he would have been his Hilarion, the one who remembered him, and they would have understood each other. No matter who commanded the other. No one cared about these things on the edge of the empire. Either edge.

Not that he would do it now. That man did not exist, and Alexios was just lonely. Lonelier than he'd thought, and only now did he know it.

* * *

To Alexios' surprise, Hilarion himself had elected to try to take the measure of him, the next day; he found this out when -- just as he had ordered his new century to take a jog with arms and armor -- Hilarion came up from behind him, quiet as a cat, and whispered in his ear.

"The stables, now, if you please, centenarius."

The hot breath against his ear made him shiver, and it was only by sheer force of will that he did not leap in the air at the shock of it. Hilarion's commanding style, it seemed, favored ambushes. He should have expected that.

When they reached the stables Alexios found that a familiar rough-coated little pony had already been saddled for him; he knew enough now not to call out the horse's name.

"This is Phoenix," said Hilarion, patting the pony briskly on the neck. "He was-- well, it doesn't matter whose horse he was now, I suppose. I brought him from Britain."

Alexios stroked Phoenix' nose. His Phoenix. He almost fancied that the horse knew him still. "He looks sturdy."

Hilarion gave that twisted smile again. "He is that. Tell me, what do you know of the Frontier Wolves?"

Alexios' heart pounded fast and heavy, and he hoped that none of the terror and joy showed on his face. "Very little," he lied, and he hated that he had to. "My tribune said that you'd been horse-archers."

Another smile. Alexios liked the look of this one more; it seemed real. Like his Hilarion might once have looked at him.

"Exactly so. We don't have proper, trained mounts in the numbers it would take, yet, to train the men up to the old Ordo's standards, but it was in my mind that I should see how much we had to do in the way of teaching you, when it comes time that you should instruct the men in it."

With that, Hilarion grabbed Phoenix' reins in one hand, and with the other hand he took up a nearby bow and quiver, slinging them both across his back, and they went down to the field together.

The course, such as it was, was a long flat field, the kind of thing it would be easy enough to take at a gallop, with a row of straw targets off to the left. Alexios squinted dubiously at it. He had learned a bit of mounted archery -- but that had been with the Wolves, and if Hilarion asked how he came by it, he would have to lie again. But there was nothing for it.

"No need to worry," said Hilarion, as Alexios vaulted into the saddle. "I don't expect you to be perfect, or anywhere near. You've never been one of our scouts, after all. I just want to see how well you can manage the ride, using your hands as little as possible, and if you happen to be able to take a shot, feel free."

Alexios grinned down at him. "Sir, we were a part-mounted cohort at Abusina. Even when you're not the decurion, you can't help but pick up a bit of it."

There, perhaps that would explain his performance. He could already tell, having mounted Phoenix, that he was going to be better than Hilarion had thought. It had been two years since he had done this, but the memory of it was still in his legs and seat, and with his knees alone he cued Phoenix perfectly to walk in a little circle about Hilarion, then around and back the other way, all the while stretching his arms out wide for the joy of it.

Hilarion looked up at him, and rather than being impressed or surprised, his face was curiously blank. "The trick-riding can wait until later, Aquila."

Something there had been wrong. Alexios shoved the matter behind him and then kicked Phoenix first into a trot, then a canter, and finally a gallop, as he nocked and drew. He loosed the arrow, a little late -- but there was no time to see if he had hit the target, because he was at the end of the clearing. Leaning back, breathless from the excitement, he gradually slowed Phoenix and turned him, heading to the targets, where Hilarion was already standing; he must have run ahead of him to get there.

The arrow was dead center. If it had been a man, it would have been a killing shot.

Hilarion's pale gaze was full of a strange respect. "They train you well at Abusina, do they?"

_Not Abusina._

"Yes, sir," he lied.

Hilarion stared at him for a long while. "You'll do," he said, finally, as if that was not what he had intended to say. "Let's go stable Phoenix and get you back to your men."

"Thank you, sir," he said, because there was nothing else he could say.

Hilarion sighed and began walking, talking but not looking at him, unaccountably serious. "I wish we had more of the good British ponies left. Phoenix there is one of the last. In the Wolves--" he said, and stopped.

Alexios had asked the question before he realized that he probably shouldn't have. "What of the Wolves?"

"We traded well for horses there, with the tribes," he said, shortly. "Won't happen again. The deal went rotten at the end, you see. Though that wasn't so much about horses." And he laughed. It wasn't funny. "The chieftain gave me this to remember him by." One hand went up to his face. "And I stabbed him through the heart." Another laugh, while Alexios was frozen in horror. "Good ponies, though."

Cunorix. He knew it had been Cunorix, but it was even worse to hear Hilarion speak of it, with all that forced lightness, as if he were trying to make it a jest but even he could not.

"I'm-- I'm sorry," he managed, finally, knowing it to be pathetic, nowhere near what the event deserved.

Hilarion merely shrugged.

They went back together in silence. Not companions, not friends, only two strangers, a man and his commander.

When he dismounted, Hilarion put a hand on his shoulder, fingers resting above his own wound from that day, and Alexios shivered at the weight of it.

"Phoenix is yours," Hilarion said, conversationally, as if they'd been talking this entire while about something much happier. "Take good care of him."

* * *

They sat in the officers' mess after dinner, all three of them -- Alexios, Lucius, and Hilarion -- about to discuss the shape of the day that been. It had been a thing they had done before, among the Wolves, and it had not taken them long to develop it again, just a few weeks, even if only Alexios remembered it.

Hilarion slid the knucklebones he had been playing with off to the side of the table and sat up a little. But only a little. It was a wonder to Alexios that Hilarion was willing to make even that concession to his new authority.

"Come on, Lucius," he drawled, "be good and put the book away, and tell me how the men were today."

For as Alexios looked over, he saw that Lucius was reading a familiar scroll. He took one breath, and then another, very quietly. Soon, perhaps, these reminders of the past would stop plaguing him. But not today.

"What's that you're reading?"

"The Georgics," said Lucius, practically clutching the now-rolled scroll to his chest in an embrace. His eyes shone.

"His favorite," Hilarion added, with a chuckle. "And to think, he was going to burn it when we left Castellum. I forbade him, of course."

His eyes met Hilarion's, and it seemed for an instant that Hilarion was trying to tell him something by it, but he had not the faintest notion what. "Did you?"

"He was going to want it later, wasn't he?" said Hilarion, with a certain amount of confidence. "Come, tell me of the men."

Lucius leaned in, and looked at both of them in turn. "I would be interested to know if Aquila's observation coincides with mine: they do not seem to be taking well to the army sword-drills."

Alexios paused and thought about it. True, there had not been the same... enthusiasm... that he had seen in some of the recruits at Abusina, but he had thought it was him they were reacting to. But if they had been doing the same thing to Lucius...?

"I agree."

Hilarion's scarred smile had turned daring. "What do you say we train them like we did the Wolves? As long as they can wield a sword well, it does not much matter to me whether they stand in straight lines as Rome would have it. Besides, the old Ordo rather liked their dances, and I am sure the Attacotti would be happy to do theirs again. They must have them."

He remembered, all at once, dancing before the praepositus, and everything that had happened after. It was Hilarion's decision, he supposed, and if Hilarion was willing to back it to his superiors -- well, Hilarion had never seemed to care much what people thought of him. That was done, then.

"Are you sure that is wise?" asked Lucius. "We had that little problem, you'll remember, with the Dance of the Bull Calves."

Ah, but it wouldn't be a problem here. "The Attacotti are all of one tribe," Alexios said, impatient to be getting on with it. "Surely they won't have old tribal feuds like--" _like what happened with the Dalriads and the Votadini_ , he thought, and choked to a stop, realizing too late that he was certainly not supposed to have heard of them. "Like that which happens in some units, as I have heard."

There was the barest pause, and then Hilarion looked at him and grinned, a shadow of his old carefree smile. "Nicely put, Aquila."

Neither of them had noticed. Of course they had not. They did not know. There was no way they could begin to guess. But they could become his friends again, even if they could never be who they had been. It would have to be enough.

* * *

He ran into Hilarion while making the evening rounds the next day, and hastily made to salute -- all the more hasty because he had forgotten it was he who was supposed to salute Hilarion, and for a long moment he stared at him in confusion until he remembered who commanded whom now.

But Hilarion only laughed. "At ease, centenarius," he said, and matched strides with him as they walked along the rampart. "I only wanted to ask you how you were getting on here."

"Fine, sir," said Alexios, a little stiffly. Surely that was the answer Hilarion wanted.

The gaze Hilarion leveled at him was skeptical. "Truly? I thought that, well -- being as Lucius and I have served together for years, and you have only just come, you might feel a little strange about it. The gods know I would."

He could hardly bear this. It was never going to be right between them now, but there was nothing Hilarion could do to fix it. Talking about it certainly wouldn't help.

"And if I do?" murmured Alexios, so quietly that he did not think Hilarion heard him over the wind.

But Hilarion did, because he stopped and laid a tentative hand on Alexios' arm. "If you do, I wanted to say that... you're not unwelcome here. I wish I had a way to prove that to you. I wish-- if it were the Wolves, I would know what to do."

For an instant Alexios thought his heart had skipped a beat. "Would you?"

Hilarion nodded. "In the Frontier Wolves, we had a custom: every man was taken out by one of his fellows to hunt a wolf, the only one he would ever kill. He -- we -- put their skins on our cloaks. It was how you knew you belonged."

"I've--" Alexios' throat was dry and the words stuck-- "I've not seen you wearing such a cloak."

"It didn't seem right, now," Hilarion said, and remembered pain flickered across his features. "And we probably can't do it with the Attacotti. Shame. Two hundred men at once is too many."

"There'd be no wolves left after each man had one, and maybe not enough to go around in the first place," Alexios agreed, hoping he was saying the right things. Everything was happening, nothing could happen, and it was all backwards and wrong and awful--

Hilarion half-smiled. "Ah, well. It was only a thought." He seemed to hesitate before he spoke, very softly. "I would have taken you out for yours."

Before Alexios could figure out what in the world he had meant by that, Hilarion was gone.

* * *

Some days were very like it had been at Castellum. Some days he could almost, almost forget that he had lived this life twice. He and Lucius went on scouting patrols with the men, for they were all new to the land. And it was almost as a game, like this, when there were no tribesmen to fight, when they were running and tracking and climbing because they could, not because they must do it for the sake of their own lives.

It was very like happiness.

"Are you all right?" he called out, after the rustling noise that sounded suspiciously like Lucius sliding out of his own tree. The other centenarius had already ruined his pack and most of his gear at the beginning of the exercise, having greatly misjudged the depth of a puddle.

Lucius' voice was muffled, but it sounded like he was laughing. the sort of exasperated sound one makes at oneself. "Be quiet, or your squad will hear, and they'll find us."

Alexios twisted and hung backwards off the branch so he could see; yes, that was Lucius on the ground. "Ah, but if my squad finds us first, they win." He smiled a smile that would have made Hilarion proud.

It was beginning to rain. Drops fell heavily on the new leaves.

"I would," Lucius said with some asperity, "accuse you of enjoying this."

"I might be," said Alexios. Still upside-down, he fumbled the practice sword off his own sword-belt, tossing it down to Lucius; he was going to need it for the mock-battle when the men actually found them. "Here."

Lucius caught it and looked up at him, tilting his mud-smeared face curiously. "Tell me, Aquila, was this what you thought life would be like when you joined the Frontier Scouts?"

There was no way to answer that truthfully and not be thought mad. Lucius would think it the work of demons. Alexios inhaled sharply. Perhaps his old life had merely been a dream. It was beginning to feel that way.

"I have heard you say at dinner," he said, very carefully, after making sure that it was still true, "that when you leave the Eagles you would have a farm, and grow things there, as Vergil writes about in his book."

"Yes, and?"

"For me," Alexios said, wrapping his arm around the branch and feeling himself smile into the rain, "this is the farm."

* * *

Alexios was in the little apodyterium of the fort's bath-house, having pulled his tunic off and shoved it into the nearest empty box, when he realized that he had not been alone for some minutes now.

Hilarion had come in from the baths proper at some point and he had dried off and put his own tunic back on; there was a leather thong about his neck, half-covered by the tunic, that Alexios would have sworn he had not had, in his other life; Hilarion had never been one for adornment. In this world, though, Alexios supposed Hilarion could very well be different.

It was then that he realized Hilarion was staring at him, that Hilarion had been staring at him for a while, longer than one half-naked man generally looks at another in the baths unless he means something by it.

Hilarion's face was perfectly unreadable, giving away nothing. It was a gambler's face. It was the way he had looked at Bremenium when he had offered to fight Cunorix. Alexios met his eyes. Even though he was only lacking his tunic, Alexios began to feel hideously exposed by the stare, as if Hilarion could know all of his secrets just from that piercing gaze.

Then the moment was broken, though he could not have said what caused it; Hilarion looked away. Wordlessly, Hilarion slid on his breeks, laced them up his legs, knotted the fastenings of his boots, and padded off in silence, not looking back.

What had _that_ been about?

* * *

The evening meal that night was particularly boisterous, for the rest of the officers had found out about the results of the earlier scouting exercise, and they had spent the entire meal teasing Lucius for his defeat. Hilarion, oddly, was absent from this: he was at the table, but he only sat, stretched out across one long bench, and said nothing. He looked at them all with a queer expression on his face. No -- he looked at _Alexios_.

"Ah, it was hardly Lucius' fault," Alexios said, as cheerfully as he could, trying not to think about Hilarion's silent stare.

The quartermaster, Quintus, slid a full cup toward him, along the uneven length of the table. "You won, though, eh? Drink up! To your victory!"

"To my victory," echoed Alexios, self-conscious, and took a sip.

"Not like that," said Quintus, when he'd put the mug down. "Drink! Like you mean it!"

Obligingly, Alexios drained the cup, feeling the poor wine slosh about inside him. At least he'd eaten well first.

"That's the way!"

There was a hand on his shoulder, and he stiffened. When he looked up, Hilarion's face was very near his, a blur of pale movement, too close to focus on; Hilarion had risen while he was drinking and come over.

"It's not urgent, Alexios," said Hilarion, quietly, with a voice as emotionless as his face, "but I would appreciate it very much if you came to my quarters when you're done here."

And he was gone.

The room was silent.

Quintus was the first to speak, sing-songing. "Oh! Aquila's been asked to see the commander!"

"What did you do?" This was Lucius.

Alexios was still staring at the doorway Hilarion had left from. "Nothing. Nothing that I know of."

It was strange, he thought. Even stranger than the mere fact of summoning him when he had done nothing noteworthy, which was odd enough, Hilarion had called him _Alexios_. He had not done that before, not in this world.

"Suppose you'd better go see what he wants, then," said Quintus.

"Yes," Alexios said, hollowly, "I suppose I'd better."

* * *

He expected to see Hilarion lazing about his quarters, being his usual indolent self, perhaps leaning against a wall or sprawled across his chair while waiting for Alexios to arrive. But either _usual_ for Hilarion was different these days, or he'd heard Alexios' footsteps, because he stood in the middle of the room, tense and still.

"Come in," Hilarion said, with that same level voice. "Close the door."

Alexios began to wonder if he should be afraid. But he went nonetheless. It was Hilarion. He could never have feared Hilarion.

"What is this about?" he asked, finally, when Hilarion had said nothing else. "Sir." He hoped Hilarion would not realize the acknowledgment of rank was still, for him, an afterthought.

When Hilarion finally spoke, each word was measured. Rehearsed. As if he'd been saving up this speech to say for a while. But his face remained stone-still, and Alexios had not the slightest notion what the other man thought.

"I have a question I would like you to answer," said Hilarion, very slowly, "If you think it strange, I pray you will ignore it and put it behind you. Attribute it to the whims of your mad commander, if you like."

A faint smile curled across the smooth side of Hilarion's face. Alexios thought that perhaps Hilarion might have trembled, ever so slightly, but it could have just as easily been a trick of the light, the flickering and guttering of the oil-lamps casting shadows on the contours of his marred skin.

What was this? "I will answer as best I can." What else could he say?

Hilarion took one ragged breath and he was shaking, Alexios saw, shaking in the lamplight, and in his eyes there was an awful mix of pain and hope, everything he must have been holding back. "One question, then." He took another breath and grinned the fey grin of a legionary soldier unsheathing his sword, ready at the battle-line. "Alexios. _How did we meet?_ "

The question didn't make sense. Hilarion knew how they had met. It had been barely two months ago. He'd been there. Of course he knew--

He _knew_.

Name of Light. It couldn't be true. But what if it was? What if Hilarion had really--

Alexios couldn't speak. His throat tightened around the words, and he didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry.

"Alexios," Hilarion repeated, and oh, he sounded broken, almost terrified. As if he couldn't trust his own thoughts, couldn't let himself believe in this. "Please. Please say it. Tell me I'm not mad."

"You remember--" Alexios began, stunned.

" _Tell me_." Hilarion held out both hands, pleading. "Please." His eyes glimmered with something that might have been tears.

Alexios swallowed hard and tried to speak. "We were at-- at Castellum. The day I came to take command. In the officers' mess. Gavros introduced you to me. You joked-- you joked that the Wolves bit people--"

He could not have said which of them moved first, but somehow he was in Hilarion's arms, and Hilarion was embracing him hard enough that he almost couldn't breathe. He wrapped his own arms about Hilarion's too-thin chest, squeezing back just as hard, and he tucked his face into Hilarion's collarbone. It felt as though Hilarion were the only real thing in the world and he never, ever wanted to let him go. From the sheer strength of his grip, it seemed that Hilarion felt the same.

"Damn you, Hilarion," he wheezed, half-strangled, not sure if he was even angry, and he was crying into Hilarion's tunic as he talked. "You knew? Two months here and you let me think this, but you knew--"

"I only suspected," Hilarion murmured, and Alexios felt a laugh shake through Hilarion's ribs. "And I thought then that I was mad for suspecting it, because how could it be that you remembered as well? But you were hiding something. You shouldn't have been able to ride Phoenix as well as you did, not even with the training you claimed. There were a few times it seemed you knew things about the Wolves that you couldn't have. And you're an awful liar, you know that, sir-- Alexios--" He swore. "Do you know how hard it's been not saluting you?"

"About as hard as saluting you, _sir_ ," Alexios retorted, half-delirious with relief, and Hilarion laughed again, the kind of laugh that was staving off tears.

They parted, reluctantly, and Alexios looked up into Hilarion's face, smiling, thinking for an instant that Hilarion might kiss him-- that he might-- but no.

"I didn't know until today." Hilarion's hand drifted, gripped Alexios hard about the shoulder. "When I saw you in the baths. When I saw the scar on your arm."

Oh. "That was Bremenium." That was Cunorix.

"I know." The scarred half of Hilarion's mouth drew taut. "It went about as well the second time, if you were wondering."

"Tell me."

Hilarion stepped back, motioning him to one of the chairs, while he himself took the other one. It felt like being ripped away, and Alexios wanted to grab him again, for fear that one or the other of them would be flung away through the years, now that they knew. But he could not cuddle up to Hilarion. Even this revelation did not permit that.

"You first," said Hilarion, smirking.

Alexios sighed. "I likely don't have as much to tell as you do--"

"Do I have to pull rank?"

Alexios stared, half-horrified. "You wouldn't."

"I wouldn't," Hilarion agreed. "But your story is probably shorter, yes. So, let's hear it."

He ran his hand through his hair, looked away, and started talking. "I found myself in Abusina. When they gave me command. And you have to understand, I couldn't-- I couldn't just let them die again--"

Hilarion's voice was soft. "I know."

"I didn't realize they wouldn't give me the Wolves until after I'd done it," he said, helplessly, feeling like an idiot. "So I spent a rather uneventful two years there. Nothing much to tell. And then I thought that, maybe, if I hadn't been in the Wolves, if I hadn't met the Votadini, if the Votadini hadn't met the praepositus, if Connla had never stolen that damned horse--"

And Hilarion started to laugh, slow and sad. "My poor Alexios. It was never about the horse."

"It wasn't?" Obviously it wasn't, he knew, because it had happened anyway, but how--

"And it wasn't about you at all, either." Hilarion half-smiled. "Don't let it go to your head."

"Pardon?"

"Gavros got the promotion he was going to have anyway." Hilarion folded one leg to his chest, awkwardly, not meeting Alexios' eyes. "It's only that without you to fall into disgrace with us, they promoted me. It was a while before I figured out what you must have done. Of course, I didn't know you'd done it because you remembered otherwise. I kept expecting you any day now, any day -- and then you still weren't there, and Gavros was handing me the keys to the pay-chest and wishing me luck."

"I'm sorry." He wasn't sorry for saving Abusina, he wasn't, but he hadn't known that Hilarion had been at Castellum, waiting.

Hilarion shrugged. "Don't be. In your place, I'd have done the exact same thing. So I promoted Lucius, and tapped Vedrix for junior centenarius--"

"Good choice."

"I thought so." 

Their eyes met, and it was strange again; he had spoken as Hilarion's commander without thinking of it.

Alexios leaned forward. "Then what?"

"The problem wasn't the Votadini. Well, not only the Votadini. There were so many bribes. I suspect I didn't even learn about half of them, and I wasn't in a position to offer anyone more money not to kill us." Hilarion's mouth was set into a grim line. "So, if you're wondering, the Votadini never met the praepositus. I never invited them. It didn't matter. Druim's own men slit his throat, killed the sentries, and opened the gates. And when the Arcani lit the crantara for war, the Votadini went with them. It seems they hated Romans quite enough anyway."

"O immortal gods." Alexios thought he might be sick.

Hilarion quirked one half-scarred eyebrow. "I rode that fine stallion of Montanus' out of Castellum, after he died. The beast foundered in the bog. All show, that one; not half so good as he looked, in the end. I wondered if the gods were having a jest with me about it. Nothing good at all."

"You saved Lucius."

"I did." Hilarion's hand clenched into a fist. "I tried, I tried-- but for every man I saved, it felt like I lost two more. I saved Bericus and lost Vedrix. I saved Rufus, and Cullen took a spear to the throat. I made sure Lucius was on the right side of that river when the bridge went, and five more men drowned. And I kept wondering-- I keep asking myself if it was worth it. If I picked the right ones. How I dared to think I could choose. If I could have done it differently--"

"You did all you could."

Hilarion's voice was bleak. "Tell that to the dead."

"You think I don't ask myself that?" 

The words snapped out of him, and Hilarion stared. Alexios was suddenly aware that in this moment, they understood each other as no one else could. They had been through the same trial.

Hilarion shut his eyes. "I wish-- I wish I hadn't had to do it without you." Before Alexios could say something -- anything -- in reassurance, Hilarion's eyes snapped open, his face wretched, mocking. "Aren't you going to ask about Bremenium?"

He didn't want to know more. He didn't. He had to. "Do you want me to?" he said, very carefully.

"Cunorix wanted my head anyway," said Hilarion, dully, as if he were merely reciting facts, as if Alexios were the board of inquiry. "I'd killed Connla in the first attack on Castellum, you see. We needed to stall for time, again, and it was easy enough to get him to fight. But I was never as good as a swordsman as you. To my detriment." He traced a finger, absentmindedly, down the horrific scar. "I was just lucky enough, in the end. I don't remember anything after that. Nothing that I'm certain happened, anyway. Lucius got everyone out and to Onnum. There was a great deal of blood. Mostly mine."

"Did Cunorix--" Alexios began, and stopped. He didn't know what he wanted to say. _How did it feel?_

"I never knew him very well," said Hilarion. "Neither time. Not like you did. Sometimes I wondered if he knew, somehow, that I had been here before. But we'll never know."

He had seen Cunorix' shade, that night. "I think he might have."

"It wasn't a thing I liked, killing him," Hilarion said. And then, very quietly: "But I wasn't the one who'd been fucking him, was I?"

Alexios took a sharp breath, and for a moment he could not speak, from the shock of it. "You knew?"

A laugh. "You think you were subtle?"

"I thought-- maybe--" He could feel his face growing hot. "I did care for him, you know. I don't know what I was thinking. Mostly I wasn't."

"Spoken like a true Frontier Wolf."

"I saw you," Alexios said, suddenly, not knowing what possessed him to say it. "On Midwinter Night." _You kissed me._

Hilarion smiled faintly. "I had a great many dreams. I did not know that one was true."

And then Hilarion was rising from his chair, stretching out; he was still a shadow of his old self, weighted by grief. But he smiled again, and, Alexios saw, was lifting the leather thong from about his neck.

"What's that, then?"

"Something of yours."

The dolphin ring glinted grass-green in the torchlight, dangling from the leather. Hilarion had kept it, he had brought it back somehow. It had come with him. Alexios nearly reached out for it, but then he stopped, an uncomfortable thought forming in his mind.

Hilarion frowned. "You don't want it?"

"What if-- what if it's the reason you're here? Because it was a thing of mine, and so you went where I went because you had it?" Cold fear settled into the pit of Alexios' stomach. "What if, when you give that to me, one of us disappears?"

_Don't leave, Hilarion, don't leave again._

"There's only one way to find out," said Hilarion, and before Alexios had time to react, Hilarion had pressed the ring into his hand.

Nothing happened.

They stared at each other in silence, broken at last by Hilarion's contemplative sigh.

"Well," said Hilarion. "That answers that question."

There was no going back.

"I would have missed you," Alexios said. It was all he could bear to say.

Hilarion grinned again. "Don't go saying that too loudly; I'll get to thinking you care. Speaking of which--" he held out a hand-- "you might want to give that back now."

"What? Why?"

"It seems that the men -- Lucius included -- think it's a love-token." Hilarion had the grace to look abashed, but only just. "They think that my poor long-lost love gave it to me, and that I wear it in remembrance. Very tragic. So it might be slightly awkward for you if tomorrow you're wearing it and I'm not."

Alexios scoffed. "Love-token? It's a man's signet ring! Surely they can tell it's not from a woman!"

Hilarion regarded him evenly. "Yes, I rather think they can."

"But I-- oh." His thoughts finally caught up with his mouth, and he stopped, feeling incredibly stupid. His ring-- and Hilarion had let them all think he was--

"I may have encouraged the impression," Hilarion added, guilelessly, the picture of perfect innocence, and then he grinned. That was the Hilarion he remembered.

He tossed the ring back, and Hilarion put it over his head again. It looked good on him, Alexios thought, absently. Right, somehow. Proper.

"So what should we do now?" He stood up, and Hilarion stood with him. It was long past time to get to bed, as if he could possibly sleep tonight, after all of this. "I suppose I should go. For the night." He began to turn away.

"Alexios," Hilarion said, in a strange, pleading voice. "Don't leave me. Please. Stay."

The hand that Hilarion held out, not quite touching him, trembled, and then Alexios realized what he meant. Lightning coursed through him. This, too, was another secret Hilarion had kept.

_Are you sure?_ he nearly asked, but then he saw Hilarion's face, eyes wide, lips parted, and he knew Hilarion had decided this long ago.

"I'm staying," he said, and he stepped into Hilarion's arms and kissed him.

* * *

It had been sweet, Alexios mused, happily, as Hilarion curled next to him, already asleep. Achingly sweet. It had never been quite so with Cunorix. Not that he could truly compare; they had been so different. With Cunorix there had been roughness, passion, the wildest of pleasures. Hilarion -- after several long moments of awkward self-consciousness, a thing he never would have expected from the man -- had touched him with the greatest tenderness, so slowly, as if intent on memorizing every sound he made, every moan and sigh and quiver. As if he'd been planning this for years. As if he'd been so lonely, so hungry, so starved -- and maybe he had been.

They had found each other now. It was right. They had made something about this world right.

And then Hilarion sat upright, opened his eyes, and punched Alexios hard in the face.

Blood trickled from Alexios' nose, and he tried to dodge the next punch and failed; Hilarion's fist connected solidly with his jaw. In the grip of a nightmare, Hilarion stared through him, unseeing, his pale eyes wide, his pupils pinpricks even in the darkness.

Hilarion had half a head and several pounds on him, but Alexios could still fight. Not that he wanted to hurt Hilarion; he only wanted to restrain him. He managed, after long minutes of struggle, to grab Hilarion's flailing wrists and awkwardly pin him that way. Or so he thought. Hilarion worked free and hit him in the eye.

"It's all right," Alexios said, wondering as he said it if Hilarion could even hear him, pinning him again, leaning on him with all his weight. "It's all right, Hilarion, you're not there anymore. You're safe. You're not there--"

With a sigh, Hilarion went slack under him.

"And that," said Hilarion, rather shakily, after a pause, "is why I haven't slept with anyone in two years. Sorry. Are you bleeding?"

"I'll be fine." He was. He would be. They were neither of them perfect. But this was the world they had. They would make the best of it.

"You weren't there." Hilarion's voice was very small. "You were gone."

Alexios took Hilarion's hand and interlaced their fingers. "I came back."

"I know," said Hilarion. It was enough.

* * *

In the morning they were still at Turnacum. 

It was the first day in two years that Alexios had not woken to while wishing he were somewhere else. The day dawned bright and warm, and the both of them were smiling, catching sight of each other, and hastily stopping, all the way to the mess.

Lucius stared at Alexios' black eye, then at Hilarion, then back to Alexios. "What kind of conversation did you _have_?"

"An excellent one," said Hilarion, blandly.

"I am," Alexios assured Lucius, "very glad I came here." And he was.

**Author's Note:**

> Things I found while researching this story that I choose to blatantly ignore: apparently Mithraea aren't physically equipped for butchering and possibly got their pre-killed animals from the local civic cult, but geez, what kind of mystery cult is that? How is that even a secret? "Hey, Gaius, the Mithras-followers are gonna need another bull on Tuesday?"
> 
> Also my selection of Turnacum is completely random (a fort! in Belgica! whose name was in the Notitia Galliarum!), and I don't even know if there were nearby auxiliary forts. Abusina is real (and as far as I can tell is in Rhaetia rather than Germania), though, but I figure you know that.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Hilarion](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5640481) by [constantine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/constantine/pseuds/constantine)




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